Amen!

Something to be thankful for: a beautifully designed proclamation, signed by several prominent authors and illustrators, insisting on creating fresh, meaningful picture books.
(link to Children's Authors and Illustrators Proclamation)

I especially like "picture books are a form, not a genre" (that's especially poetic sounding to me), and "the tidy ending is often dishonest." I find that part in particular to be fairly inspiring. It makes me want to write a book that ends, if not truly happily, then maybe at least unsatisfactorily, as so many things end up in life!

via Quill and Quire via Drawn! The Illustration Blog.

Point One for Paper!

Came across an article on NYT last night about how while the world moves on to e-readers (myself included, god how I love my Kindle), actual "dead-tree paper books" are still the preference of tech-saavy parents. I have to agree. The benefits far outweigh the costs in this case. My top reason my children will read on paper for as long as they can: the illustrations! I want to see each one big and right out in front of me, not squeezed onto a limiting screen. But there will always be that delicious sensory and romantic feel of a paper book that you can't get from the screens we use for everything else all day. New paper smell is one of my favorites!


Some Things Should Stay the Same
via nytimes.com

Introducing "Lilith": A Webcomic!

Well here it is! It's only been in my head for five years now! It feels so good to make real. What a relief. It's like all this creative pressure just builds up inside my head, and it can even make me kind of moody if I don't let it out (what a temperamental artist, I know). It was one of those things where I had these vague perceptions of who the characters would be, but I couldn't for the life of me get it all out correctly on paper. NOTHING satisfied me when I tried to sketch this thing out, but I knew I loved my concept. Then one day, I just blocked out a chunk of uninterrupted time and forced myself to start it. Not sketch or plan, but just jump in. It turns out that method works for me! I have about 9 comics drawn and ready to go, all loaded up on the website. It's such an exciting feeling. I really needed a change from picture books after trying again and again to start one only to have it either be too similar to one on the market, or to just not be feelin' it. It's always going to be hard to top Lizzie Fox-Top I think because it was a story so close to my heart and it was about someone I cared about so much (who just passed away this Easter). I needed a new creative outlet, and I think webcomics are it.

Webcomics are scary though, I have to admit. It's like the first time clicking that "send" button for the printer of Lizzie Fox-Top, except it's that feeling every day. That nervous build-up, quadruple-checking to make sure everything's how I want it, and then the brief but immediate moment of panic just after I hit "publish." Because once it's up there and everyone sees it, I really can't go back. Every decision has to be final. That will be something to get used to.  Anyway, Lilith will be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight (yay automatic uploading!) so please check back to hear more of the story each day. Lilith is also on facebook, so please "like" her! Thanks!

Brand New Project!

It's coming...

What is that baby holding?

So I had this thing last month. You might call it a group art exhibition of the self-portraitly-themed persuasion. I have never liked doing self-portraits. Either they are too straightforward, and therefore have nothing to say except, "Hey I can do a nice technical painting" or they are incredibly deep and disturbing (a la Frida Kahlo/skeletons/monkeys/thorns/bleeding hearts). I've never been stellar at technical depictions, and I don't know how much I have to say (or want to say) via an art piece that is getting looked at by who knows how many people.  I always feel like I need more life experience than my 26 years in order to make a painting of that caliber.

So naturally I found this assignment to be somewhat stumping. The only "subject" I could think of that felt somewhat natural to paint was, unsurprisingly, a child. So here it is. Me as a child. Me as a child in my own imagination...or something trippy like that. I call this one "Untitled." Interpret as you will. Although I must say, that is chalk in her hand, not a cigarette as was posited by a visiting artist friend.

Oops! I Made a Doodle!

 

This is my fish Snape!

He's pretty much the most awesome fish ever. He is very friendly and likes to follow everything I do from his perch on the kitchen counter. He even modeled for the camera. Whatup mothatruckas!

I feel like for a fish brain--of which there really isn't much, but I think he has maybe one particle devoted to thoughts of food (which he's terrible at seeking) and one-half particle devoted to observation of the world around him--he's kind of smart. In that, I believe the last half particle of his fish-brain is devoted to imagining What Could Be. We are much the same in that regard.

What a marvelous world can be contained in a mere fishbowl!

LET HER EAT CAKE!

Re-visiting/re-vising my favorite illustration from Cousin Ann.

Robot Back to School, + First Attempt at Painting in FOREVER

I got inspired by my long-ago drawing "Giant Evil Space Alien Robot" (pictured as this blog's header) but decided to re-imagine him as an innocent three-year-old going to his first day of school. This is for the cover of The Caring Center's September newsletter. I tried a tri-color palette. I'm inspired by the color palettes I've been viewing on the website of JooHee Yoon (particularly the adorable frogfolio calendar page, which I ordered a print of today!). I think this monthly newsletter, which I've been doing since March, is a good place for me to experiment with new techniques.

I was also in an exhibition this past Friday entitled Shorelines. My painting was used as the show's promotional image!

Sorry for the terribleness of the sketch pictures. They were taken with my phone. Fun activity: between the final postcard and the in-process photo, see if you can spot the sex-change!

Currently I'm working on a self-portrait for another show in Oxford. Images to come of that one!

Self-Portraits and Dead Things

 

Here's an image I made to go on the postcard mailer for a self-portrait exhibition at a gallery in Oxford, PA this September. It's an obvious reference to Norman Rockwell's Triple Self-Portrait. I'm not a fan of Rockwell--in fact, I hate him (although this opinion was minorly challenged during a fantastic lecture in college about how he may have been the most subversive artist of his era!) but I've always thought this self-portrait is cool.

 

I am thinking about doing a piece or two for a Shoreline exhibition in Oxford as well. I have had a continuing interest in dead things and have always had a creeped-out fascination with dead things that wash up on the shore. To get a little inspiration, I googled "dead" / "weird washed up at shoreline" and got some interesting results. So many crazytown websites out there! One of my favorite quotes was from a blog, about a mysterious creature that washed up a few years ago in CT--

Bobbette Clapsadle was walking along the beach with her family when she made the gross discovery. Her daughter snapped pictures.

 Mainly I just love the name Bobbette Clapsadle (and that gross = immediately photographing). What are the odds that name is made up? A quick search uncovers that she may indeed be the only Bobbette Clapsadle in the US (nay, the world?), and that she's an emergency dispatcher in Groton, CT. Thanks for having an awesome name, Bobbette! And thanks for finding that cool unidentifiable creature on the shoreline that I can use for inspiration.